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Originally this started out as a simple gearlist, but it has evolved into something much more as I was writing it. That tends to happen a lot sometimes, but there are some things I just can’t go without saying. I mean… I think some of you blood DKs out there DEPEND on me for vital info, and I’M HERE TO BRING IT TO YOU.

/ahem. Anyway!

Heart of Fear opened this past tuesday, and Terrace of Endless Spring opens in another week and a half, so I will kill two birds with one stone and get the gearlists for both of them going here. Just like I did for Mogu’shan Vaults, I will do them by boss instead of by slot. It tends to make things easier, so you can look at whichever boss you’re on and see what he may have, and if it’s of any use to you or not.

Sigh. Hope you DKs weren’t planning on getting your sha-touched weapon anytime soon. Friggin last boss of the last raid of the last of the lastie last lasts. /flail

Tier 14 vs Off-tier items.

One of the things that plagues every class every tier of raiding is: “Is our tier set good enough? Are the bonuses worthwhile?” As a general rule, you almost never want to wear all 5 pieces of tier gear. 4 is plenty, you get the set bonuses, and there’s usually one piece that is weaker than the others, even if by a narrow margin. In this case, the weak link would be the Gloves, and i’ll tell you why. They’re the only set piece with no mastery and no socket. Otheroff-tier gloves have sockets that you can add moar delicious stats to, but the tier ones don’t.

Now then. If you only wish to go for the 2-piece set bonus, your ideal pieces are legs and shoulders (with the chest coming in a VERY strong 3rd place because of two amazing yellow sockets).

If you wish to go with the 4-piece bonus, you want to add the afore-mentioned chest, and helmet (good GOD that is a lot of parry rating.. /fans self)

Now then. Is it better to go for the 4-piece bonus, or is it better to go with the off-set pieces that have mastery? The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. You could go either way and probably be just fine. If you’re a bleeding edge progression raider then… well, what the hell are you doing at MY little blog? Honestly though. I cannot math hard enough to devise an answer to that question. I’m sure there’s a way to do so, but it’s far beyond me. The best I can do is provide you with comparisons and let you decide for yourself. Thank god for wowhead for making these comparisons much easier to look at.

All things considered, I will probably only be going for the 2-piece set bonus. The amount stat-fuckery between tier and non-tier pieces is too wide for me, personally, to ignore (more on that in a second). Your mileage may vary, of course.

Now, as you look through the comparisons, you may see a couple items that I didn’t include in my drop lists above. The reason for these are there are crafted pieces that aren’t boss drops (but the patterns very well might be), or they are drops from Galleon or Sha of Anger (world bosses).

As you look through the comparisons, you may also notice that some of the stats aren’t normalized very well, even though they’re ALL the same ilvl (which I promise i triple checked, and then checked again, because I couldn’t fucking believe it myself.) For instance, look at the glove comparison there. I already mentioned that there was no socket on the tier gloves, compared to the other 3 offset pieces. What I didn’t notice until I made that actual comparison link was that it ALSO has less strength (by a good margin) than two of the offset pieces. I’m not sure if this is intended or if this was just shit itemization that slipped through the cracks somehow, but as it is right now, i can’t very well just overlook some of those discrepancies.